


Cigarettes

by elizabiscuit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Slash, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Reichenbach, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 10:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1466623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabiscuit/pseuds/elizabiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John will occasionally have a cigarette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short little one-shot, not brit-picked, not beta'd.

During John’s deployment to Afghanistan, he had smoked. Smoking seemed incongruent with his profession, but John had seen so many things go wrong in the human body, and so many wrong things be done to the human body, that he figured a few cigarettes were unlikely to be the thing that would ultimately do him in. That being said, John probably would never have started smoking had he remained a civilian. But approximately eighty percent of war was crushing boredom, and soldiers’ willingness to find entertainment where they could led to higher rates of smoking. Smoking was something for John do. 

Handily, it also served as a complement to the other twenty percent of war. After a firefight, floods of adrenaline and shouted commands, John would peel off bloodied gloves and surgical mask and lean up against the wall outside the medical tent and smoke. Unlike alcohol, the effects of which were delayed by digestion, nicotine hit your blood with a satisfying rush almost immediately upon inhalation. 

Far from the dust and boredom and terror and blood of Afghanistan, back in London, John still liked to smoke but only very rarely. The urge would strike under similar circumstances to those in Afghanistan. Usually it was after he and Sherlock had solved a case, particularly when it had involved a narrow escape. This one had been very narrow. 

At 221b, Sherlock paid the cabby as John unlocked the door. In the foyer, Sherlock shook out his coat and started up the stairs, still talking excitedly. “Sherlock, I’m going to stand outside for a bit,” John called up after him, not expecting to be heard. Sherlock continued on into their flat, whatever he was saying about matchbooks and carbon growing muffled. John poked around in the coats, found his pack of cigarettes and went back out into the rain. 

It was the darkest time of night, the street lamps like orange orbs painted on a black canvas, haloed with silvery drops of rain. John trotted to the shelter of Speedy’s awning. He was digging around in his pockets for his lighter with a cigarette between his lips when he heard the door to 221B open. Sherlock was holding an umbrella, but still hurried through the rain until he reached John under the awning. He shook out the umbrella and sidled up to John. In one motion, he pulled John’s lighter out of his pocket and deftly flicked it alight, holding it up to John’s cigarette. 

Of course that’s where the lighter had gone. John looked up at Sherlock and cocked an eyebrow suspiciously. Had he laced his cigarettes with something? Emptied the lighter and refilled it with jet fuel? Sherlock saw John’s look, and scrunched his nose in feigned offense. “I needed it the other day for an experiment,” he explained. John raised his other eyebrow. “It is unaltered,” Sherlock rumbled.

John sighed and cupped his hands around Sherlock’s and the flame, sucking gently to light the cigarette. He inhaled, felt the slight burn in his lungs and a couple of seconds later, the rush of the nicotine. He sighed the smoke out and leaned back against the brick wall. Sherlock leaned back next to him, and they both stood and watched the rain fall steadily in the yellow glow of the streetlamps. With the smoke, John exhaled out the images of Sherlock, trapped and hurt and in danger. He exhaled out the thoughts of what could have happened had he and the Yarders not found him in time. 

“Thank you for today, John,” said Sherlock, his voice deep. More and more lately he seemed to know exactly what John was thinking. He felt Sherlock’s fingers gently light on his wrist. “We’re alright now. I’m alright.” His thumb was moving in slow, light circles over John's pulse point. He was settling John down like a spooked horse.  As the adrenaline slowly filtered out of his blood, John winced--he had sprained his wrist when he had clocked the killer with the butt of his gun. 

John took another drag from the cigarette, now favoring his sore wrist, and another deep breath out. He was starting to feel more like himself. He felt a laugh bubble up from his chest. "As if people don't talk enough. Now we're standing on the street holding hands," John smiled, not looking up. Sherlock didn't answer. The  thumb stilled over John's wrist. The slender fingers slid lower until they were pressing palm to palm. John didn't pull away.

He finished his cigarette and ground it out on the pavement under his foot.  "Tea?" he asked. They turned and walked hand in hand back to 221b, both under the shelter of Sherlock's umbrella.


End file.
